


Transcendent Principles

by kissingandcrying (orphan_account)



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Supernatural Elements, and talks to a goddess at some point, harry does research
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-18 14:24:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10618779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kissingandcrying
Summary: Harry makes a promise, completely unaware that the goddess Aphrodite will overhear and make it a reality.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First: The correlation between the release of this and the release of the promotional material is coincidental. I'm planning on updating quickly in the hopes that I'll get some more pictures of Eggsy in a suit but I really think it was just accidental that the two of these events happened on the same day. >///<
> 
> Second: I have to thank futuredescending for checking over this for me. A second set of eyes always helps and she certainly made me feel much better about putting it up here. With that said, any mistakes are mine. She had some suggestions and I made some edits and then tried to self-correct, but I'm sure I overlooked a thing or two, so any comma abuse, spelling error, etc. are mine!

It was strange considering that nothing had lead up to this. The day had been quiet if anything. Harry had been sulking around the office waiting for Eggsy to come back from Haiti, and to pass the time he’d harassed Merlin into dinner only to find his gloating cut short by his own, _quite sudden_ , disappearance from the man’s office. He found himself soon after standing in a dampened, humid room that he had no recollection of ever traveling to.

“Er…”

Harry dropped his keys and turned to follow the sound of a voice he knew better than his own. Not only had Merlin and the Kingsman headquarters disappeared, but in their place was one Eggsy, attached to a wall by a set of handcuffs. The boy seemed equally unsettled by the company. After a soft noise of confusion and a bit of gaping, he stuttered, “Ha - G-Galahad?”

“Gawain?”

So it was Eggsy. Truly.

Harry quickly picked up his keys and pocketed them before rushing to break Eggsy free of his cuffs. He hadn’t equipped himself with his full arsenal but never actually left his house unprepared for a quick lock pick. Eggsy’s wrists were free and he was rubbing his arms exaggeratedly within the minute.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” Eggsy asked.

“I’m not entirely sure.” Harry admitted. He helped Eggsy rub some life back into his arms as he replayed the events of the last few minutes. Honestly, how he’d traveled from London to Port-au-Prince was a complete and total mystery. If Harry had thought there might be an answer, he didn’t get it from Merlin, who rang him in on his communicator a second later.

_“Galahad.”_

“Merlin.”

_“Where the_ fuck _did you go and how the_ fuck _did you get there?”_

“I apologize. Merlin, I believe I’m in Haiti.”

_“Haiti. Alright. How?”_

“I don’t know how.” Harry sighed.

“ _Okay._ _Why?”_

“I’m afraid I don’t know why either, Merlin. It’s a bit strange that I’ve even managed to get here in the course of a minute. Perhaps we should start there.”

“I called you,” Eggsy mumbled. “Right before you got here and then you sort of…. magicked yourself right over there.”

Harry politely removed his glasses and put them on Eggsy’s face so that he could explain to Merlin what he knew. While the boy spoke, he catalogued the room. It was barren with the exception of a few things - a table covered by a pristine cloth, a bucket beneath said table, and a tray of sanitized objects for medical procedures and open wounds shoved off to the side of it. The humidity was coming from a small crack in the ground that led to what Harry assumed was some sewage system. The room was a bit congested but it was by no means the worst place that Eggsy could’ve been held prisoner. Suspiciously empty and for that, blessedly easy to deal with as far as prisons went. Still, Harry wasn’t looking forward to staying here longer than he had to.

Behind him, Eggsy yelled, “I’m telling you, it was magic. I - _shit -_ I fucking _watched him_ pop in here. Yes! Pop, coz he didn’t walk through the fucking door!”

Harry pocketed the medical supplies before flipping the tray they were on, and then he went to collect his glasses, saying shortly, “He’s aware, Eggsy. I was in his office when it happened.” Harry put the frames back over his own nose and said none-too-kindly, “Merlin, I think it’s quite clear that something… unexplainable has happened here. We’ll have to consider this mission cancelled. Now would you be a dear and send us some transport? I’ll activate the GPS for you.”

 

* * *

 

Merlin was at a loss. Harry was at a loss. Eggsy had theories which ranged from ‘someone’s bewitched all of us’ to ‘aliens are fucking with the life force’ and so honestly, Eggsy was at a loss too.

It seemed impossible for Harry to actually disappear and reappear some hundreds of miles away. It seemed even more impossible for him to reappear in a locked and guarded place that someone he knew was trapped in. They had all seen it happen. Harry had _felt_ it happen and he’d heard the resounding ‘pop’ upon his displacement. But as strange as it was, there was little to no forthcoming explanation about how it had happened, and all three of them found themselves in Merlin’s office, after the fact, wondering what the hell was really going on.

“Again. You went from here,” Merlin said waving his arms in front of his desk, “to somefuckingwhere else half way across the ocean in a second.”

“It’s witchcraft!” Eggsy yelled. “I promise. Just hear me out.”

“It’s not witchcraft. There has to be a plausible explanation, Eggsy, and if you can’t be serious about this then please leave and allow Merlin and I to figure this out. I’d rather not sit here and listen to your ridiculous theories,” Harry said shortly. He was sitting beside Eggsy on the only couch that Merlin had in his office. Eggsy was adamant that witchcraft was responsible. Harry wanted for the boy to stop screaming in his ear.

“Fuckin- _Harry_ . What happened isn’t plausible, so how the fuck can you look for a plausible explanation? Am I the only one in this _fucking_ room with two eyes? You disappeared and reappeared on another continent!”

“There has to be logic, Eggsy,” Merlin agreed.

Eggsy looked between both of them like they were completely daft, and then said, “Magic is logical.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. _Enough_ , Eggsy,” Harry said angrily.

Chiding Eggsy was apparently the wrong thing to do because Eggsy just scoffed at him and picked up the pillow that they’d placed between the two of them as a space divider, smacking Harry as hard as he could with it. Then he stood up and stomped his way to the door with a quiet, “Fuck both of you.”

“Stop and think for a second,” Merlin called after him.

Eggsy ignored him easily and slipped himself out of the room despite Merlin’s efforts. The door closed behind him and Merlin waited a second. When Eggsy didn’t return, he just sighed and turned his attention back to Harry.

He had just opened his mouth to draw the two of them back into conversation when Harry felt a strong pull in his gut and then -

_Pop._

He blinked himself into another space. He quickly fell on his arse and made some god-awful sound when he landed on his tailbone, and the sound of his outburst echoed around him. It only took him a second of frantic searching to recognize his surroundings as the hallway right outside of Merlin’s office. It wasn’t just shock that kept him silent and sitting on the hard, marble floor for those moments that he processed the situation, but Eggsy’s clicking his tongue, and saying, “Not magic? I’m not fucking mental.”

“Shit.” Harry said.

Eggsy was leaning up against the wall opposite Merlin’s office door, and so he was already looking towards it when the thing swung open and Merlin bustled out, glasses slipping down his nose in what was likely very _frantic_ movement in the moments before.

Of the three of them in the following seconds, Eggsy was perhaps the calmest.

Back and forth, Harry and Merlin’s panicked exclamations echoed around all of them.

“Jesus, Harry -”

“I’m not quite sure-”

“This is mad, I’ve never seen any-”

“-and to think that I’d completely opposed the ide-”

“Technology, I could understand. Magi-”

“I can hardly believe that it turn-”

And Eggsy’s eventual, “ _Alright, alright. We fucking get it.”_

“How can this have happened?” Harry asked wildly. This was the first time in his twenty plus years of Kingsman service that he’d been legitimately confused. A lack of forthcoming answers to their previous situation had meant that he could convince himself that magic didn’t exist. Yet here Eggsy was, recreating the exact same thing and very _clearly_ labeling it a supernatural phenomenon. “How have you done it?”

“I called you.”

Merlin hesitated and then asked, “Have you… this might not be the most appropriate question but, have you made any deals with any... entities, perhaps?”

“F-faustian bargain,” Harry chimed in. With a bit more concern he begged, “You haven’t.”

Eggsy just sighed and shook his head. With a look of annoyance, he said a quiet goodbye to both of them and started on his way down the hallway. Both Merlin and Harry watched him go this time, terrified of turning to one another and admitting that perhaps for once in their lives, they hadn’t a fucking clue what was going on.

 

* * *

 

Harry and Eggsy had lived together for a few years and Harry had never returned to his flat to find all of the lights off. Since the day Eggsy had dragged his boxes into the entryway, the boy had managed to keep a light on somewhere in the house just to keep JB from feeling deserted. It was shocking for Harry to climb out of his cab and see his flat looking so desolate. For a terrifying moment he thought that Eggsy had packed all of his things and run off. The fact that they'd been suddenly introduced to _magic_ of all things, he would have understood completely.

But he unlocked his door and the jingling of JB’s collar was loud and clear. He sighed a breath of relief and flipped the switch for the chandelier that hung high above his head so that he could see.

“Where is your father?” he asked JB. The dog bounced around his heels and then took off towards the kitchen. Harry followed behind him.

It turned out that Eggsy had drunk himself to sleep. Harry could smell the alcohol before he even rounded the corner and flipped the kitchen light switch to see Eggsy with his forehead uncomfortably cradled by his arm on the kitchen table. The boy hadn’t even undressed himself from their day of work, instead opting to open one of their pricier bottles of champagne and polish it off on his own in his suit. 

“Eggsy,” Harry called.

Eggsy sighed deeply and then shifted in his seat.

“Eggsy.”

“No,” Eggsy mumbled.

“Are you upset with me?” Harry asked. Eggsy didn’t seem interested in inviting Harry to the table, but the table belonged to Harry and was in Harry’s flat, so he ignored the desire for permission and planted himself in the empty seat beside Eggsy. “Would you like for me to leave you alone?”

“Why’d you get upset with me earlier?” Eggsy asked. All Harry could see was the back of his head and so he did what little he could with what little he had. He ran his fingers along Eggsy’s scalp and swept the boys hair to the side.

“I thought it was nonsense.”

Eggsy turned his head and shifted in his seat so that he was facing Harry. His cheeks were flushed from the alcohol and his eyes were watery.

“You think a lot of what I say is stupid.”

“That’s not true,” Harry argued. “I agree with you more often than not.”

“Coz you’re my boyfriend so you have to,” Eggsy said.

“No. Because you’re an intelligent young man with intelligent young ideas. Magic is hardly something you can expect me to just agree with.”

Harry was a bit more timid when he worked his fingers into Eggsy’s hair this time. Though the angle was easier on his wrist, it meant that Eggsy was just staring at him while he wound his fingers through the boy's hair over and over again. They were both still overdressed. Harry hadn’t taken his shoes off. He hadn’t even loosened his tie, but he felt that what he’d done to Eggsy earlier by shutting him up required his immediate attention, and that rather than get comfortable, he needed to fully apologize for being so rude.

“I was shocked. It’s not an excuse for me to have taken that out on you. I’m sorry.”

Eggsy frowned for a second longer before giving in and smiling at him. “That’s alright.”

“I know nothing about magic, and so the problem becomes what we can do about this.”

“I quite like it,” Eggsy said. “Just think you up and there you are.”

“It’s inconvenient for me. And also, what happens if you don’t mean to think of me?”

“I been thinking about you all day and you ain’t popped up but once. That’s when I said I needed you for something important, in my brain, course, and then you kind of - popped in.”

“Enlightening.” Harry sighed.

JB’s collar rang out as the dog trotted from the kitchen back to another area of the house and Harry suddenly remembered that it was late, he was tired, and that this entire charade had forced an early morning upon them tomorrow. He didn't want to think too hard about it because he didn't, and likely wouldn't, get any answers tonight. He was confident that Merlin had already begun working on their problem. He rubbed Eggsy’s back and said, “Go upstairs. I’ll bring some tea up and we can sleep this off. Perhaps tomorrow it’ll all have been a very strange dream.”

“Is that what you’re hoping for?” Eggsy asked.

“Yes. I’m not sure I’m ready to believe in the supernatural, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of being tied to anyone this way. Part of me still thinks it's all a hallucination.”

"I think that's the shock talking."

"I'm not in shock." Harry said. 

That was a lie. Before he'd returned to their humble abode, he'd spent the entire car ride hyperventilating. He'd called Merlin three times and then opened every water bottle in the back of the taxi to try and hydrate himself. Eggsy didn't need to know that, though, and Harry had no plans to tell him.  

Eggsy eventually took the advice and stood up. He bit his lip and then leaned in and kissed the side of Harry’s mouth, his warm lips pressing in with the aim of a toddler but a determination that far outstripped that age group. Harry took Eggsy’s jaw in his hands and helped him straighten up, so that their kiss wasn’t just a one sided attempt to smooth over the events of earlier. The taste of alcohol was clear, but it wasn't bad. He let Eggsy press kisses on his lips some five times over before stopping him and guiding him to the kitchen door.

He needed to take his coat off and hang it up, feed JB, make some tea and then go upstairs to finish undressing. He made it through approximately one of those things before his gut yanked inwards and he popped into his bedroom.

“ _Oof.”_

“It still works.” Eggsy said. He wasn’t even all the way in the bedroom. He was standing in the doorway with a smile on his face that was too wide to be innocent.

Harry looked at him and said clearly, “Don’t do that.”

“Oh, _come on_ Harry.”

“No. I understand that this might not be much of an inconvenience for you, but as I have little choice about when I’ll be popped into another place, I would appreciate you using it for emergencies only. Do you understand?”

Eggsy sighed and bowed his head.

“Yes, Harry.”

“Now I’m going downstairs to finish making your tea and when I come back up, it’ll be via the stairs.”

Eggsy nodded his head and then stepped aside so that Harry could pass him on the way out. He kissed Harry’s cheek in apology before the man could step out of reach, but Harry was on the precipice of another anxiety attack and so he didn't stop to humour it. When he got to the stairs, JB was at the bottom with his head tilted inquisitively. Harry never thought the day would come when he sympathized with his partner's dog, but he also never thought the day would come when his partner turned out to be a magician with harry-related powers. It seemed that it was a good day for firsts, and as Harry descended the stairs, he quietly begged whatever higher power had introduced this to them so suddenly to keep from giving them any more gifts. If either of them woke up tomorrow with any more abilities, Harry wouldn't make it to his sixties.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry loved Eggsy. He reminded himself of that quite often.

But he’d asked nicely for Eggsy to consider the consequences of using the magic without knowing its boundaries. He’d also asked Eggsy to find out how it’d happened in the first place so that they could find a way to reverse it. The boy had worked on neither of those things and had, instead, used his new skill to pull Harry into every situation imaginable. The boy was bored doing dishes? _Poof_ \- Harry could be bored with him. The boy was stuck doing paperwork at the office? _Poof_ \- Harry could keep him company. JB needed walking and Eggsy wasn’t in the mood? _Poof_ \- maybe Harry wouldn’t mind a bit of quality time with the little beast.

Harry understood. It was funny for Eggsy because there weren’t any visible consequences. He wasn’t considering the inconvenience of being dragged around on the tail of someone else’s life, and he certainly wasn’t considering the anxiety of never knowing when you’d be somewhere you didn’t want to be. Harry was already anxious about the magic. Eggsy’s irresponsibility wasn't helping.

Harry had been dealing with this behaviour for a week before he actually caught a temper about it, so sudden and foul that even Merlin refused to berate him. He’d been two seconds from stepping under the showerhead to wash the shampoo from his hair when he felt the familiar tug in his abdomen, and then he was standing on the carpet in Merlin’s office, dick out and soap in his eyes.

“ _Oh_ my word.” Merlin said.

“Eggsy!” Roxy screamed.

Eggsy sucked in the loudest breath he could and said, “Oh, _god_. Sorry, Harry. I’m so sorry. Oh, shit. Shit. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…”

Harry sighed.

“Would any of you happen to have a towel?”

Everyone in this room had seen Harry naked on different occasions. It wasn’t the exposure that ticked him off. It was the lack of respect for Harry’s own wants and wishes. Over the course of the week, he’d all but begged Eggsy to give it a rest unless it was absolutely necessary, and the boy hadn’t taken the warning seriously. They were playing with a fire that they weren’t even sure how to put out - and Eggsy seemed to be alright with that.

Merlin tossed a small blanket at him instead. “Towels are in the infirmary.”

Harry wiped the soap from his face and then tied the blanket off around his waist. When he opened his eyes and saw a petrified Eggsy looking at him, he considered warning the boy off of using his magical powers for inane things like this _yet again_ . Unfortunately, his hormones had other ideas, and the first thing out of his mouth was, “I have _fucking_ warned you not to call me unless you needed me, yet you still insist on dragging me around London for your own amusement.”

“Look, Harry, I’m so-”

“Don’t fucking talk, Eggsy. I’m not finished,” Harry said stiffly.

“I know you’re angry,” Eggsy carried on. He looked contrite, fumbling with his words as he thought of how best to mollify Harry’s sudden anger. “I would be too, and - I’m so, so sorry for calling you. I should’ve checked that you weren’t busy, or maybe…”

“No. No, no, no. Let me explain to you very clearly why I’m upset, because you don’t seem to understand what you’ve put me through this last week. First, you expose me to magic. You don’t know if it’s safe. You don’t know if you should use it. You don’t know how you got it. Yet you’ve still ignored every plea I’ve offered and have instead continued to pull me along after you like some kind of _dog_ on a lead. It isn’t humorous. It’s degrading.” Harry adjusted his hand on the blanket around his waist and took a deep breath. 

“I get it. I do,” Eggsy pleaded. “I thought… Well, I just - I mean, it’s magic, innit.”

Harry wanted to understand more clearly. He knew that Eggsy’s intent hadn’t been malicious, but his anger was besting him. He’d spent all week under the cloud of an inconvenience that he couldn't control, but that Eggsy _could_ control and was choosing not to. The boy still didn’t seem to understand that the bigger issue wasn't curiosity, it was his ignorance towards Harry's requests. Harry was cross, and with soap dripping in his eyes and a towel around his waist, there was absolutely no point in acting like he wasn’t.

“You didn’t think of the consequences even when I asked you to. You’re either hard of hearing or too irresponsible to take me seriously, so I want you to listen to me very closely. You’re not to call me again. For anything. You’ve lost all privilege you have with this power. If you need help, you can call Merlin. If you need attention, you can call Roxanne. I’m warning you now, If I should show up in a place that I haven’t gone to myself, you and I will no longer be on good terms. Have I made myself clear?”

Merlin sighed, Roxanne looked out of the window with her eyes wide open, and Eggsy fixed Harry with a curious look. He raised his eyebrows, leaned against the wall and said, “This is showing up on good terms, is it?”

“If you hadn’t called me, it would’ve been.”

“I apologized, Harry. I'm sorry. That's the best I can do. God, you’ve got such a fucking temper sometimes.”

“I’d like to see you deal with someone like yourself on a daily basis and come out happy.”

Eggsy scoffed and Harry knew what was coming. The petulance. It was always the same when Eggsy was being told off, the apology, the anger, the petulance, not in any particular order, but always all three. Harry’s mistake was not cutting himself off before it got to such a sour state. He should've made his point and been done with it - stormed off with a cloud over his head like every other time they bumped heads. It was a week coming, though, and Harry just let it come. Eggsy said, “So what if I keep calling you, anyway?”

And Harry said, “Don’t fucking test me, Eggsy. It won’t end well for you.”  

“So you're threatening me now, yeah?”

He should have said no. He had never made a threat he didn't intend to keep, and to do it to his partner was crossing some sort of line. The irony wasn't lost on Harry that he was berating Eggsy for not thinking through his choices, and yet without much consideration of the consequences, responded, “Yes, I am. Don’t call me again. Am I clear?”

Eggsy could’ve sharpened knives with the look he gave Harry. Before Roxy or Merlin could interfere, Harry turned his way towards the exit. He prayed that Eggsy wouldn’t test his patience and was happy to find that he made it all the way to the taxi without any relocations. It hadn’t slipped his mind that he might’ve actually hurt Eggsy’s feelings because he most certainly had, but he couldn’t turn around and apologize. He didn’t want to just yet.

 

* * *

 

Long before Harry had told Merlin that he intended to take Eggsy up on their first date, Merlin had warned him that Eggsy was young. He still made mistakes that Harry and Merlin hadn’t made in a long time. Neither of those were bad things.

But Harry hated the differences between Eggsy and himself.

He wanted to understand what made Eggsy the boy that he was. It wasn’t just the magic that brought the curiosity out of Harry. It was every mission where Eggsy turned his communicator off because Merlin said there wasn’t time to save anyone else, or every evening where Eggsy broke into the agents offices to leave food because they hadn’t eaten yet. Little things that might have gotten him killed, or that might’ve invaded someone’s privacy, but that were done with good intentions.

Everything about Eggsy drove him mad. It wasn’t good or bad. It merely caused ups and downs that Harry was still learning to navigate.

For the next few days, Harry’s righteous indignation distracted him from Eggsy’s absence. He went between work and his flat on a schedule that he knew would keep them apart from one another. At first it was because of his own petty thoughts, but by the end of the first day he realized that the space was good for both of them. Eggsy hadn’t tried to call him - neither with magic nor with any modern technology and that was fine. He took the opportunity to distract himself with the bigger picture at hand: the unexplainable magic.

It was a few days after their little row that Harry found himself in Merlin’s office. The man had stacked books to a dangerous height on his desk and told Harry that at a close friend's suggestion, they needed to get through these books. He had spent an equal amount of time grumbling about the archaic practice of referencing _paper_ materials but Harry cut him off when Merlin's complaints became too distracting.

“Think of it as an opportunity to transfer data to your online system,” Harry mumbled, nose deep in a book called, _Popular Magic: Cunning Folk in English History._ “Do you have any books on spellcasting?”

“I have a few books on modern witchcraft,” Merlin said. He began to deconstruct one of his towers to get to the books in question. Harry closed his current reading material and set it aside.

“And is Eggsy alright?” He asked, jumping topic while he waited for Merlin to give him the book. 

“He’s burning steam in fair Verona with Ms. Roxanne,” Merlin said.

“Is that so? I’m shocked you sent him out.”

“He’s upset. It’s busy work.” Merlin tossed a thick, hardcover book in Harry’s direction. “It’s much more dangerous to keep him cooped up in here.”

Harry doubted that, but he said, “I see.”

“Are you worried?”

“I’m always worried,” Harry said. “It’s Eggsy.”

“It’s data mining. Not overly dangerous.”

“Yes, but it’s Eggsy.” Harry repeated.

The book in his hand was a guide to practical magic. It spoke about states of consciousness and sensory perceptions. Harry read through anything that he thought would help him with his issue, but even the small section on energy manipulation didn’t sound familiar to his own situation and so he closed the book and asked for a different one. Merlin threw him a second book, and then a third book, and then a fourth book, and frustratingly, Harry learned absolutely nothing from any of them. It felt like a gigantic waste of time, cradling thousands of pages worth of material in his lap and learning nothing.

He was on the fifth book when Merlin made a soft noise of triumph. Soon after he said, “Do you believe in god?”

“Occasionally.” Harry said.

“Which occasions?” Merlin asked.

“I’m not sure. Sometimes I’ll just follow an overwhelming urge to pray.”

“Only one god, I assume?”

“I don’t know. I imagine if there are multiple, my messages will get forwarded to the correct deity. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” Merlin said. He tore a piece of paper from a loose notepad on his desk and slipped it into his book as a holder. Harry watched him curiously and waited for him to elaborate, but after putting in the bookmark, Merlin only closed the pages around it and stood up. “Why don’t we go and get lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You will be,” Merlin assured him. “Percival is cooking. Come on.”

Merlin had a strange habit - he wouldn’t eat before he’d made what he called “50% headway” on research that he had to do  - because having half of the information you needed was significant in their line of work. So he had something, which was good. But Harry didn’t want to wait for their lunch to be finished to find out what it was.

“Have you found something?” Harry asked.

“Actually, yes,” Merlin said. “And believe it or not, it’s all thanks to Eggsy.”

Naturally, Harry mused.

Harry was thinking about Eggsy quite a bit today. He went to lunch with Merlin expecting to get an explanation for Merlin’s questions, but he’d only just sat down to a plate of Alfredo when his stomach dropped, his chest went tight and he started to panic. His stomach was in knots, and for a second he thought that Eggsy was calling him. It was the same symptoms with the exception of a few and it was all very familiar to him, but a minute passed and he hadn’t moved from the table. He kept opening his eyes to the full plate of Alfredo and an untouched glass of water in front of him.

“Are you alright, Harry?” Percival asked.

“Aye. You look pale,” Merlin commented. “What’s happened?”

“I feel a bit ill. Where exactly is Eggsy right now?”

“He’s at a hospital in Verona playing nurse with Roxy,” Percival answered. “She told me it’d be an in and out job. No need to worry.”

But Harry _was_ worried, and he was developing a migraine. He wanted to see Eggsy as badly as anything.

“Harry?”

Merlin’s voice was muffled. When Harry looked at him, he was only an arm’s reach away, but his voice sounded like it was traveling through a tin can. It was almost unrecognizable. For one agonizing second, Harry thought he was having a stroke - and then he blinked himself in an empty hospital room. Merlin and Percival had disappeared from in front of him and in their place was an upkept hospital bed and a fresh set of patient’s clothes.

“Oh no,” Harry said.

He turned wildly in his seat to look around himself. The signage was in Italian - just simple messages about being mindful of one’s health and making sure that nurses and patients washed their hands properly. Outside of his door, staff zoomed by and babbled frantically in Italian, and only one peeked her head into his room with her mouth agape. It must’ve been the noise that had startled everyone.

“C-ciao…” She stuttered.

“Ciao,” Harry said. He didn’t speak Italian and so he couldn’t explain his way out of zapping into the room. Eggsy had really fucked him this time. He started stammering in what broken italian he could remember and in the process failed to notice Eggsy budging his way into the room behind her. It only hit him that he had more company when the nurse hit the floor and there was still a man standing.

“Harry?”

“Eggsy.” Harry sighed. Eggsy leaned out of the room, yanked Roxy in with him, and then he closed the door on the three of them and locked it.

“Oh my god! Did you dose her?” Roxy asked, eyes flitting to the woman on the floor. She’d almost tripped over her on the way in. 

“Harry’s here.” Eggsy said. 

It seemed to hit Roxy that they weren’t alone and she made a strange noise in the back of her throat. Then she kicked Eggsy in his shin and hissed, “You’re supposed to be here to clear your head _. Explain._ ”

“I didn’t call him, I swear,” Eggsy said. He licked his lips and rubbed his hands together nervously. “He just… got here on his own, somehow. But I didn’t do it.”

“Not on accident?” Harry asked.

“No. I was - I wasn’t…” Eggsy started. He looked between both of them and realized he was being targeted, and so he said simply, “I dunno what’s going on, alright?”

Roxy stepped around the nurse and took a seat on the bed. It seemed that the whole room had gone quiet and none of them were too keen on breaking the silence. Eggsy stood with his arms folded over his chest, biting his bottom lip to hell. Harry folded one leg over the other and just waited patiently for someone else to talk. In the end, it was Roxy who said, “So you didn’t call him on purpose.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Rox. You’re gonna have to trust that I didn’t do it.”

“On purpose,” Harry added.

“I didn’t do it!” Eggsy yelled. “I told you! I thought about you before and it didn’t do nothing. I have to call you on purpose or you won’t come.”

Harry remembered Eggsy mentioning it before but it didn’t explain how Harry’d managed to get to the hospital. Still, his anxiety had tapered down to nearly nothing now that Eggsy was standing across from him. The lack of adrenaline wasn’t lost on him. He wanted to be upset about being summoned again, but he had missed Eggsy terribly the past few days and he wondered if there was any use in hiding it. On top of that, Eggsy looked miserable - he had bags under his eyes and his voice was much sharper than usual.

Harry stood up and said, “Eggsy, could you come here for a moment?”

“I don’t really want to, no.”

“Please,” Harry begged. “Just for a moment.”

“You’re an arse, Harry.”

“I know,” Harry said. “But I believe I had a good reason to be upset.”

“I know. Doesn't make you any less of an arse.” Eggsy sighed.

"I think it does. Just a little." Harry responded.

Eggsy watched Harry from beneath his furrowed eyebrows and continued to bite his lip until the stillness of the room became too much. Then he sighed, stepped over the nurse, and awkwardly made his way across the distance between them, right into Harry’s arms.

Harry was still upset. He reckoned Eggsy didn’t feel too great either, but just one minute with Eggsy and he felt better than he had in days. Harry wasn’t sure what'd happened or how he'd gotten here. If Eggsy was to be believed, then Harry should have still been sitting in London with Merlin. It was concerning, only less so once he'd wrapped both arms tightly around Eggsy’s body and squeezed as hard as he could.

He had to remember that one step forward and two steps back was still better than no steps forward at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter done! Woohoo!

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize that it's so short. I discovered that I'm more likely to update if the updates aren't long. Expect another part within a day or two (I hope, but then again I say that about all of my fic). I'm still at litindecency.tumblr.com if you want to come and chat. xxx


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